Meet Carl, me+ community member
Looking back, Carl Simmons says that it was dangerous to assume, “It will probably just go away. ‘It’ being recurring urinary tract infections repeatedly treated with antibiotics. Had the underlying cause been detected sooner, the outcome could have been different. This is what motivates me to share my story with other men.”
On a meaningful pilgrimage to the Camino de Santiago, in Spain, Carl Simmons and Dave Dufresne walked various paths, ranging from 65 to 625 miles. Friends for 35 years and now married, they relished the great outdoors, despite Carl’s recurring urinary tract infections (UTIs). “I always followed the rules!” Carl explains. “I always drank the recommended amount of water and knew my health profile.”
“We eat healthy meals at the same time every day. Carl would take cranberry and saw palmetto, but that was just masking the infection. At first Carl would get a UTI once a year, then twice, three times,” Dave explains. Carl picks up “It finally changed last year. I took 2 full courses of a prescribed antibiotic and within 3 hours, I had the same cloudiness, urgency, and inability to urinate, burning, all the symptoms we had diagnosed as frequent UTIs.” “Now in hindsight we suspect it was because he wasn’t completely emptying his bladder,” Dave adds. “I think the problem is that it is so gradual that you get used to it. If the urodynamic study had been available to Carl even 5 years ago, he might have been able to recover.”
They are correct; Carl hadn’t been completely emptying his bladder for years, allowing some urine to sit in his bladder and attract bacteria. The antibiotic masked the symptoms for a while, until it didn’t. Carl went to the urologist and got a urodynamic study. The result? Carl was diagnosed with an atonic bladder which means he was unable to spontaneously urinate due to insufficient detrusor muscle contraction. “Probably from years of stretching it out by not emptying it properly. You can’t pee until 4 o’clock when you are a teacher!"
The men describe one of the treatments in Carl’s journey toward bladder management was a ‘face-lift of the bladder.’ It involves small implants that prevent enlarged prostate tissue from blocking the opening of the urethra. “Initially it was stupendous!” Carl remembers, “However, my problem was not the prostate or urethra, my bladder muscles are just weak. I am now able to urinate somewhat on my own, but that’s still not enough to keep some of the urine from pooling and attracting bacteria.”
They found a physician colleague of Dave’s who recommended using a catheter to completely empty Carl’s bladder. “At first they had me on a Foley, a leg bag. It worked ok, but it was a bit cumbersome.” Carl continues, “The doctor said, ‘let’s try intermittent catheterisation’, and they gave me a selection of about 10 catheters. I tried them. They weren’t awful, but the Hydrophilic Cure Catheter with coude tip was the best by far.”
“The fact that the tip is smooth, eyelets are fire polished, and the catheter has a hydrophilic coating, was the ticket for Carl!” Dave adds.
“Our main message is that this is doable. It is a wonderful option for bladder health, and we want others to know that! We stand on the shoulders of many others who have gone before us. It is a matter of giving back to our community.”
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Adjusting to cathing can be tough, with a range of practical, physical and emotional challenges. You don’t have to figure it out alone.
